Crowdfunders Pozible and Thomas Mai Reach Out to Film Industry

HONG KONG – Leading crowd-funding platform Pozible has launched a special initiative for experienced film-makers.

Dubbed as ‘Mission: Pozible,’ the initiative is an open call to the film industry to find five film projects that are each trying to raise a minimum of $100,000 through crowd-funding.

Working in partnership with Australia-based film financier Thomas Mai, Pozible today (July 30) kicked off a one month selection process, before running a three month campaign to help the selected films raise the required finance.

“In the film industry we have always focused on the B2B angle to get our films financed, but social media and crowd-funding allows a new paradigm shift. We can focus on business to consumers instead. The music industry adapted to this shift a long time ago and now the time is ripe for the film industry,” said Mai in a statement.

Mai has successfully crowd-funded over $400,000 for 11 low-budget Australian documentaries, mostly made by first time film-makers, with no PR, followers, fans or social media awareness.

“Now I want to take this to the next level and have therefore teamed up with Pozible, one of the biggest crowd-funding sites in the world, to work with more film-makers who have experience, but are perhaps new to crowd-funding,” Mai told Variety.

“What is surprising is how few fans a film actually needs to raise some serious money,” Mai said. For one of his previous clients, producers of the documentary “Deep Blue Sea” 416 pledgers gave $60,594, an average donation of $145.00 per funder. On another “Gayby Baby” (pictured) he raised $104,756 from 1,244 fans.

“The story here is that a crowd-funding site, for the first time, is actively pursuing film companies to get aboard with extra treats, special attention and a dedicated one-on-one service. This is a way to personalize the crowd-funding service and help more film-makers succeed in a world that has a harder time finding money,” Mai said.

Among the advantages touted by Pozible are editorial support for promotional activities, Mai as mentor, and access to China, where the site has an offshoot.

Pozible was founded in May 2010 and is one of the largest crowd-funding platforms in the world, with a success rate of 56%. It has hosted almost 7,000 projects and has helped distribute US$20 million raised from some 300,000 donors to successful projects,